Letters: North County, May 15, 2013

More views on Benghazi hearings

Your editorial “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” (May 12) did a fine job of following the Republican party line on Benghazi. Unfortunately, it also suffers from the fundamental flaws of a political effort that is more “desire in search of evidence,” as columnist Logan Jenkins aptly phrased it (“Typecast as GOP muscle, Issa has hit his political ceiling,” North County Local, May 13) than real inquiry.

“Transformational diplomacy” (to use Secretary Rice’s phrase) is conducted in difficult and dangerous places, and security isn’t the first priority — the mission is. So security will inevitably be, and should be, a second priority — and there will be casualties.

In the aftermath, a review of State Department security decisions may be useful, but the notion that this is somehow a presidential issue is farcical. More critically, it is clear that this so-called investigation is actually damaging national security. As is now clear, the reason the mission in Benghazi was so large was that it was, essentially, a CIA operation, aimed at collecting [information about] surface-to-air about] missiles. This important, covert operation is now publicly “blown,” thereby both making further missions more difficult and imperiling the security of other diplomats.

As a retired Army officer, I am outraged that this so-called investigation is making the difficult tasks of countering terrorism and helping the people of the Middle East build a future more difficult.

Dana P. Eyre

Oceanside

The relentless drumbeat about the Libya consulate attack is sickening. How about the 10 attacks under Bush with 60 deaths and zero Republican outrage! Also, remember that the Republicans withheld $300 million that the Obama administration requested before the attack for additional embassy security. I haven’t heard that one come up in the waste of time and taxpayer money that Rep. Darrell Issa is putting on in Washington. It is so painfully obvious that Issa and his cohorts are deathly afraid of Hillary Clinton in 2016, as they should be. She will bury them in the election. When will the Republicans stop buying the lies and talking points they are being fed?

Scott Bee

Encinitas

In response to “Battles in D.C. about Benghazi not over” (May 12): Since Republicans failed to connect President Obama to any real scandals, and in an effort to undermine the credibility of Hillary Clinton, they have resurrected the eight-month-old attack in Benghazi.

Republicans claim their outrage stems from the fact that four Americans died in the attack. But where was their outrage when the Bush administration lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and nearly 4,500 U.S. servicemen and women died? Where was their outrage when Bush ignored intelligence that the United States was targeted for attack, and 3,000 died from the 9/11 attacks?

According to Darrell Issa, “If you lied to the American people and deceived the (victims) families, you shouldn’t keep your job.” Republicans have shown they are only capable of outrage when a Democratic president is in charge. Their hypocrisy is only exceeded by their fanatical partisanship.